


Robin Hood Ficlets: Merry Men

by telynmurali (juniperwick)



Series: Robin Hood Ficlets [1]
Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Guy/Allan is not dubcon just some bad choices on Allan's part, Guy/Sheriff is rather dubcon, M/M, Multi, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Smut, outlawrgy, the rest of it is quite sweet, then finally...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-07
Updated: 2007-12-27
Packaged: 2020-09-25 01:54:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 9,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20368708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperwick/pseuds/telynmurali
Summary: A collection of some of the fic I wrote for the BBC's Robin Hood back when seasons one and two were airing, unedited except for spelling and formatting, and posted in a rough chronological order. Mostly the outlaws hooking up in various cheerfully polyamorous entanglements in the woods. A little bit of Guy of Gisborne being a twat.





	1. Beautiful Dreamer

The rasp of stubble against stubble. Hot breath on skin. Hands – flat and cool – under Will’s shirt.

(They met in a jail cell and got to talking, as you do.)

The faint breathing of the forest around them. Will: behind him, tree-bark and the solidity of the oak; in front of him, the weight that pins him here, all warm and heavy and alive. All full of smiles and bright glances.

(Even with the gallows looming, there was still the ghost of a hope. It seemed to fade every hour of the long, dark night.)

The sound of Allan A Dale’s breathing, laughter, soft little noises he makes now – they all remind Will that he’s still here. Even a whisper burns his rope-raw throat, but this doesn’t need talk. The newness of being here, the fact that he should be dead and is hiding from the law in Sherwood Forest, all alone (no Luke, no dad, for the first time ever), it makes the strangeness of being pressed up against a tree by a man he barely knows and liking it – well, it makes it feel not as strange as it should.

Will wonders when he’s going to wake up.


	2. Sword Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during season one, Guy of Gisborne drills with his sword and broods.

Guy practiced every day. It didn’t matter where he was. At the house in Locksley (he still had trouble thinking of it as his own, after Hood had come back), whilst staying at the castle in Nottingham, even if he was out of doors, tracking Hood or some other minor miscreant. He’d clear a space, push back all the furniture or find a clearing, and spend hours alone with his sword.

He had come to enjoy it, if that was even that right word. There was some relish to it, something that none of the Sheriff’s words or Hood’s taunts could take away. He practiced until he hurt all over, sweat running down his back and hair plastered to his head. Thrust. Parry. Block. Swing. Reverse. Repeat. Every day since his father had thrust a wooden sword into his hands, barely old enough to walk, and told him that only with hard work and persistence would he get anywhere in life. Every single day. It was the only thing he knew he could truly rely on.

He had learned early on that he had no natural talent. (No real talent for much at all, it seemed.) His father had made him practice even harder to make up for it. His brothers were the quick ones, always outstripping him in everything even though they were years younger. He was long inured to the shame. It helped him, now, in dealing with the Sheriff.

Guy chopped at his imaginary assailant and reversed the stroke when his sword met the imaginary one. He always made his invisible opponents as skilled as he possibly could. Sometimes he would go out into the woods and practice with a tree, but a tree never moved, and never went to strike back. What kind of practice was that?

His brothers were long dead. Far too gallant, too quick to jump in without thinking. Or maybe it was the heroics they valued more than their lives. It all came down to the same thing. Guy kept a little piece of expensive parchment for both of them, with a name on each. He burned a candle for each of them every night he could.

Not as regularly as sword practice, though. And that was for himself – or for his father, he couldn’t really tell. Guy thought about it as he swung and parried, aching muscles flexing. He stood light on his toes – once again it was practice, rather than natural stance – and concentrated on his footwork as he fought his ghost opponent. Who was it, really, that he hoped to impress? Was he thinking of his father’s reaction (‘Well done, boy’) that never came, and never would come now? Or was it someone else?

Was it Marian?

He drew in his breath and stumbled, tripping over his own feet. His sword fell, hitting the floorboards with a resounding clang. Guy caught himself on his knees, letting out a hiss of pain between clenched teeth. Marian. If she saw him doing this kind of thing she wouldn’t be falling at his feet in a hurry.

But if he could get really good, even better, he might just be good enough to defeat the infamous Robin Hood.

He groped for his sword, savouring the thought. It would be so- just incredibly- it would be the consummation of all his being to, just once, have Hood at his mercy. Robin Hood was everything Guy was not – he was agile, imaginative, witty, a hero-outlaw. He was the most wanted man in Nottinghamshire. Marian. The people of Locksley. Even the Sheriff, Guy knew, in toying with him (was it play or torture?) was only temporarily occupying the gap that was marked for Robin Hood. Guy knew, deep down in his marrow, where it really hurt (more than his exhausted body), that he was only ever a place-filler.

He gripped his sword in both hands and stood. Well, he would show them. Attacking his invisible opponent again with renewed ferocity, he clenched his jaw against the pain in all his muscles. He would show them all, finally, that Guy of Gisbourne was more than second prize.


	3. Nightmares

At first, Allan didn’t know why he was awake. It was night-time. The darkness was a blanket over his eyes. He reached out, groping for Will’s missing body.

A whimper. Allan pushed himself up on his elbows and found him with his hands. Will had kicked the blankets away, and was struggling with thin air amongst the fallen leaves. His eyes were screwed tight shut. His fingers scrabbled at his throat.

Allan shook him hard, his own heart beating in his ears. Will came to with a jerk, eyes burning, hair sweat-stuck to his forehead. He didn’t need to explain.


	4. Good Morning

The light loved Marian. It curled over her lovingly, caressing the swells and hollows of her body. It licked her thigh, her stomach, her breast. It spilled over her collarbone. And she was so pale! It was as if she was made of this diluted morning light.

Djaq always made sure to savour every moment of this precious, silent time just after dawn. Knighton Hall slept, filled with little sleepy sounds like the idle creak of timbers and the murmurs of the hens outside in their coop. In between these, there was the dusty quiet. And Marian.

She would wake soon, and insist that Djaq leave. Djaq didn’t hold it against her. She supposed it was the same with Robin – Djaq couldn’t help but wonder, though, the difference in Marian’s feelings for them both. One day, she supposed, she would ruin it all by blurting out what she so wanted to ask: _‘What am I to you?’_ But not today.

While Marian slept, it was easy to adore her. Djaq had spent time memorising all the things she would want to remember one day, after it was all over. The delicate shadow of Marian’s lashes on her cheek. The curve of her shoulder. Djaq reached out and traced a hand softly across her abdomen, down past her navel, to the darker shadow of her hair. Moments like this, Djaq couldn’t think of a single thing about Marian that she wouldn’t want to remember for the rest of her life.

Marian stirred, and turned. The light shifted, possessing her easily. Djaq held her breath. Marian sighed, and settled. Djaq smiled as she shifted to capture Marian’s lips in a kiss.

As Djaq broke away, Marian opened her eyes. The look that met her made Djaq feel, for a moment, equally as blessed as Robin. Surely that wasn’t a look she gave men? Surely that wasn’t a look one could give a man? Djaq trailed her fingers over Marian’s jawline, tilting her chin up so that the dawn light lit up her face.

Marian squeezed her eyes shut and caught Djaq’s fingers in her own. Djaq expected her to say ‘You must go’, or ‘Tell Robin that…’. But she didn’t. Instead, Marian said, “Good morning.”


	5. An Hour's Rain

The rain was an all-encompassing absolution, taking the world in its gentle grip and washing it clean. It was all around, loud on the leaves and the forest floor. Will could smell it – wet earth and tree bark and Allan.

Will opened his eyes. The forest was cool and grey. An overhang of rock threw its protection over him. He shifted, and felt Allan’s warmth at his back, arm thrown over his waist. He murmured in his sleep. Will let his head drop back down to the damp earth again and closed his eyes. The rain would last a while.


	6. Different Heroes

The grass was cool and gentle against the skin of Marian’s back, the earth holding her up like a massive animal. Faint scudding clouds made their slow paths above her. She closed her eyes, and felt the air moving against her bare skin.

“Like a captive bird,” Robin’s voice came from somewhere close by. “Too afraid to fly.” She opened her eyes again. Robin’s body, propped up on his elbows, was a dark blot against the rising sun. He was already half dressed.

Marian turned onto her side, away from him. “You know why it has to be this way.”


	7. Watching Her

Marian. She was a vision in the summer night. Behind Knighton Hall, in the garden she took such meticulous care to keep, Marian was part a spectre, part a dream. Djaq stood in the living shadows where the garden turned to wilderness, breathing in the thick fragrance of wild garlic and the day’s dust. She wanted to say something gentle and perfect that would make Marian turn and see her and smile, and forgive her this little espionage – but the perfection of Marian herself got into Djaq’s throat and choked off her words before she had even thought of them.


	8. Persuasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the season one finale, Allan and Will take off for Scarborough. This early fic covers the moment they changed their minds. And there's impromptu sex.

“Here,” Allan said, shifting, with an edge of humour in his voice, “this saddle ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

Will liked the feel of Allan’s voice when he spoke, his back pressed to Will’s front. He liked the horse’s easy gait; he liked being able to wrap his arms around Allan’s waist and press his cheek against his shoulder; he liked their solitude. But he wasn’t about to say that. He wasn’t about to say anything, in fact. Everywhere he looked he saw Robin.

“C’mon, Will,” Allan said. “You’re not gonna be like this all the way, are you? ‘Cause I’m not being funny, it’s a bloody long way to Scarborough with a moody carpenter clinging to you the whole way.”

“Scarborough,” Will said, barely louder than a breath. “It’s a long way.”

“Just over a hundred miles as the crow flies.”

A hundred miles. Will couldn’t even begin to imagine that distance. All he knew was Locksley, Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. What could little Luke have made of it all? He looked about him suddenly, twisting in his seat to take in all he could see. Still Sherwood. A rutted cart track. The trees arched overhead, pushing their whispering leaves together and catching at the breeze. Startlingly green moss on the northward-facing sides of the trunks, and patches of orange and grey lichen. The brambles they tried their best to avoid scratched the horse’s legs and their boots. It was like it was trying to stop them from leaving. All around him was the fresh, clammy smell of the rained-on forest. Will sucked in breath after breath of it, trying to fix it in his memory forever.

Allan elbowed him in the side. “What in Vaysey’s name are you doing back there?”

“This is the last we’ll ever see of Sherwood,” Will said, bridling. “Don’t you even care?”

There was a silence filled by the sound of the horse’s hooves on the soft earth. Then Allan shrugged. “Ever moving on, me. I might’ve thought…”

“What?”

He looked up at the sky, then down again. He shook his head. “Oh, I dunno. I might have thought maybe this was it for me. Sherwood Forest. Part of Robin Hood’s merry band of outlaws.” Will silently watched Allan spend his repertoire of wide-boy tics and twitches that accompanied the telling of something secret and private. Head cocked, hand through hair, shoulder-shrug. “I never thought I’d be fighting for the King. Here we are, though-“ he jarred, tensing, and corrected himself, “here we were, I mean. It wasn’t the Holy Land, but it meant something. Know what I mean?” He coughed, coming back to himself. “Still, that’s all over now.”

“Is it?”

Allan half swivelled to turn an eye on Will. “The King’s back, isn’t he? He doesn’t need anyone fighting for him any more. Our merry little band of outlaws is over, because we won’t be outlaws no more.” He sighed.

“No, it’s just you and me now.”

Will glanced around again, seeing the shadows between the boughs and the little stirrings of surreptitious life in the undergrowth. “What about Djaq?” Another measured silence passed between them, enough to make Will redden and wonder if he really should have asked. He swiped a cooling hand over his face.

“Djaq would never come,” Allan answered at last.

“Too loyal,” Will said quietly. He took his hands away from Allan’s waist and pleated his fingers behind his back. Allan shifted, pressing back into him. His head dropped back onto Will’s shoulder, stubble rasping against his neck. Will pushed him back, albeit reluctantly.

“What?” Allan said, tone all offended. Will wouldn’t believe it. He could make a saint feel guilty, could Allan.

Will concentrated on keeping his voice even, and almost managed it. The words that came out of his mouth were reluctant. “Would you abandon me so quickly?”

The horse made a whickering noise of complaint as Allan yanked on the reins, pulling them up short. Its front hooves danced on the ground, as if it was going to rear. Allan twisted around in the saddle. His face was dark. “What did you just say?”

Will flinched. He wavered – but no. Balling his hands into fists, he took a deep breath and said, “It just seems to me that if you’d leave Robin and the gang without so much as a backward glance, then why shouldn’t you do the same with me?”

Allan glanced at the track in front of them, and then back at Will. He seemed to be bursting with a legion of words for what Will was – but didn’t say any of them. Instead: “Get off the horse.”

Sudden panic made Will’s heart jolt. “What?”

“You heard. Get off the horse.”

Will grabbed onto the hem of the blanket under the saddle, as if that would save him. Behind his ribcage, his heart was fluttering like a trapped bird. “No.” He lifted his chin, daring Allan to do something about it. What Allan did, in fact, was catch him roughly behind the neck and kiss him. It was hard, full of teeth and hot breath. Will let go of the blanket, groping for Allan instead. But Allan pulled away.

“Get off the bloody horse, I said. I can’t do it until you do.”

Allan was right. Will felt a hot flush creeping up his neck. He swung his leg over the horse’s rump and dropped to the ground. His knees were watery; they buckled under him and he found himself lying amongst the dock leaves and curling roots of a tall elm, staring at the rustling canopy. The leaves cast their fickle shadows and rays of weak sunlight over him. Before he could get up, Allan was on top of him, straddling his waist.

“Allan-“ he tried to sit. Allan shoved him back down and seized his wrists.

“You’re not going anywhere, young Scarlett, until you understand one thing,” Allan said. The light caught the angles of his face strangely and highlighted parts – the repeated curve of upper lip and eyebrow, and his solid cheekbones. His voice was terse. “I’m not gonna leave you.”

“Why should I believe you?” Will glared up at him. Allan was holding his wrists. Bunching the strength in his shoulders, he yanked his arms and his chest together. Allan, surprised, was pitched downwards, off balance. He fell into Will’s chest, who twisted his shoulder up into Allan’s ribcage. They struggled briefly, thrashing and turning in the undergrowth. It was still wet from the rainstorm. Will caught Allan’s arms at last and pinned them with his knees; reversed positions. The rainwater ran down the back of his neck like chilly fingers. Allan’s chest heaved under him, his clothes sodden and sticking to his skin. There was a smear of mud on his cheek. Will was torn – he couldn’t decide whether to hit him or to kiss him. “Well?” he said, breathless.

“’Cause I’m telling the truth!” Allan spat. He was trembling with pent anger.

“How many times have I heard that before?”

“What’ll it take, Scarlett?” With a twist that almost unseated Will, Allan wrenched his arms free. “What do you want me to do?” He caught Will’s shirt and jerked him down so that they were nose to nose. Will fought to prise off his grip. Allan balled one hand into a fist in the cloth; the other he wound into Will’s hair and yanked.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Will snapped. “We shouldn’t have nicked the loot, we shouldn’t have rode off with it, we shouldn’t be going to Scarborough.”

“You want to go back?” Allan asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. Will hesitated, and they stilled, frozen, for a moment, in their positions. Was that it? Will stared down at Allan. Was that the feeling of betrayal he had been nursing the whole time, like an open wound?

“Yes,” Will said. “I want to go back.” An image flashed before his eyes: himself, standing alone on the overgrown track, as he watched Allan ride away with the silver. Quicker with only one. No dissent. He felt like he was ripping open that wound in his chest again, but he grit his teeth against it. There was nothing to be done.

But the tremble in Allan’s lip was all wrong. His eyes were too bright. Right now, Will thought, he should have been wrestling him into submission and running off. But he wasn’t. He was lying as still as stone. Will could barely feel him breathing.

Then the hand in his hair pulled more gently, tugging Will’s head down. Their lips met. Allan’s mouth was warm and gentle, with the tang of rain and the scratch of stubble. The fist holding his shirt eased. Will sighed inwardly and relaxed into him. It was Allan who broke the kiss, pushing Will firmly back.

Ah, that was it. The goodbye kiss. Will sat back, still on top of Allan, slumping.

Allan shook his head and grasped Will’s chin in his fingers, lifting it. “Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’ve just eaten your father for supper. What did I tell you, Will?” There was still that elusive something in his eyes, some shimmer of the something that had stilled him. He sat up and leaned close to Will, who was suddenly very aware that he was straddling Allan’s lap. “I told you,” he said, “I will never leave you.” He enunciated each word clearly, as if it were very important that Will understand every syllable. “We’re going back.”

“We’re-“ Will stopped, swallowed, couldn’t continue. There was an indissoluble lump in his throat. He didn’t hide his face in his hands, though, like he wanted to. He tipped his head back and stared up at the gossiping leaves, swallowing compulsively. Then there were hands on his waist, slipping under the hem of his tunic over bare skin. Will shivered. There was the chill of rainwater on Allan’s hands as they slid up his body, bunching the shirt over his wrists. Will let Allan pull it up over his head and down his arms. He settled back against the wet ground, amongst the leaves, the breeze moving softly against his bare skin. Allan was between his legs, trailing hot kisses down over his ribs, his stomach, below his navel, as he eased the trousers past his hips and down.

Will grazed a hand over Allan’s head and gripped his shoulder, fingernails digging in. Allan didn’t make a sound. Will was already hard as Allan sat back, pulling his own trousers down and wetting his hands on the leaves. Will opened his mouth to say, ‘that’s not going to-‘ but no sound came out. His skin was burning, and he was trembling. He let his head fall back against the damp earth, breathing in its scents, as Allan massaged himself with rainwater and spit.

Then those cool hands were slipping up Will’s body, over his chest, briefly flickering over his nipples before skimming his collarbone. “You’re tense,” Allan said. “Loosen up. Trust me. When have I ever hurt you?”

“You hurt me plenty,” Will said, closing his eyes. Now there was only the feel of hands on his body, breath on his abdomen.

“All right,” Allan conceded, and the grin in his voice was audible. “This is going to hurt.” His hands moved over Will’s hips as he leaned close. Will could already feel him there, at the apex of his thighs, warm and fleshy. “But remember,” he whispered, “I do love you.”

He thrust himself inside and Will cried out, arching back. Dear God, the pain- but the pleasure – a feeling like tearing but around and beyond and above and even part of that there was the pulse of growing pleasure – or was it pain? His hands tightened on Allan’s shoulders. “Stop-“ Allan froze, breathing heavily. He ran his hands up Will’s thighs and down again, stroking cool fingers over his hips. Will shook his head and took a shaky breath. “Yes. Keep going.” There was a husky undercurrent of need in his own voice he didn’t recognise. Slowly this time, Allan thrust again into him, Will’s burning hands on his neck. Every movement throbbed with sensation, flaring and brightening as they found their own rhythm. Allan groaned, the sound vibrating through him. Will pulled him down to wind his fingers in his hair, run them over his rough jawline.

“What did you say?” Will asked, his voice hitching. Each thrust built on top of the last like waves in the sea he had been told tales of when he was young. He found himself arching into them, his breath loud in his own ears. “A minute ago?”

“I said,” Allan breathed, “shut up and shag me.”

Will came, ecstasy overwhelming him and sinking him as he cried out something unintelligible - Allan only moments later, intensely, with his face turned up to the trees. He sunk down on top of Will, breath shuddering through him. Will felt like he had been shattered and cast out over the whole forest, sunlight and leaves suffering the exquisite after-pulses with him. His skin was burning all over. The breeze was a blessing, Allan’s body suddenly too warm. He squirmed out from underneath him, Allan rolling away with what Will was almost certain was a satisfied grin. He was distracted, though, by the pain.

Every movement was an ache. He rolled onto his stomach with a grimace and let the soft breeze caress him, resting his head on his forearm. For how long he lay like this, he didn’t know. Drowsiness ambushed him, surprising him with how tired he felt. Gaps opened up in his memory as he drifted- but was awakened by the toe of a boot in his side.

It was Allan, fully clothed and beautifully dishevelled, staring down at him with an inscrutable smile. Daylight dazzled around his shoulders and head. Will was forced to squint. “Rise and shine,” Allan said. He held out a hand. Will took it, muscles sizzling with an invigorating ache, and stood carefully. Allan looked him up and down, but said nothing. Will counted it as a blessing.

Allan watched him as he went about the process of cleaning himself up and getting dressed with the precise, shortened movements of those with unexpected pains. “We’d best be getting a shift on, I suppose,” he said. “If we’re headed back. They’ll be missing us already.” He had retrieved the horse and stood now with a neutral expression, one hand on its shoulder. Will caught his eye and straightened. There was so much he wanted to say. The words got stuck in his throat somehow, awkward and angular things. *Thank you. I love you too.* He dipped his head and looked at the ground.

“What was it,” he said finally, “that you-“

“You know what it was.” Will looked up. Allan’s gaze was level. “And I meant it.” He coughed, and shrugged each of his shoulders in turn, looking away. “Anyway, best get a move on.”

A smile crept onto Will’s face. “All right,” he said. “But I’m not riding the horse.”


	9. Surrender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Djaq. Marian. The woods. Cunnilingus.

Djaq stepped back, almost stumbling against the roots of the tree, and wondered how exactly she had come to this point. The memory of the past – what, hour? Half? – seemed inconclusive and confused, reminding her of the one solitary time she had ever been drunk (prayed to Allah for forgiveness afterwards, too). She had hated it, not having a clear head and precise recall. Now, though, her brain was working far too slowly to feel much of anything but surprised.

How had it begun? Alone in the camp, with the peaceful whispering of the sky and the trees all around her. The way daylight came through the leaves in irrepressible rays and the breeze touched the branches always filled her heart with something like joy. There always seemed something optimistic in the sunlight on these days, something that was full of hope and life that could never dream of winter. These days, she loved the forest more than anything else in the world – more than Will or Allan, more than John, more even than her poor, dead brother.

She was collecting plants around the fringes of the camp when Marian was suddenly there, as if she had been all along.

Djaq found it hard to catch her breath as Marian’s fingers skimmed her cheek, down her neck and over her collarbone. She could feel the rough bark of the ash beneath her own fingers. Her back pressed against the trunk of the tree. There was a strange, half-asleep look in Marian’s eyes – Djaq could think of half a dozen poisons that would cause that effect, but she didn’t think Marian had taken any of those – as if she had been mesmerised, and didn’t know what she was doing.

Her hand glided over Djaq’s breast (sharp intake of breath) and down to her waist, hip, thigh. Her other hand hung loose by her side, half-curled. She was like a flower herself, Djaq thought dreamily; always so full of colour and life, but so soft and so fragile – yet with a curious strand of strength running through her somewhere, deep inside. Break her in two and you’d find it, sure enough – but she’d still be broken.

It was that thought that made Djaq act. She reached up with both hands, one cupping the gentle curve of Marian’s jaw and the other sliding into her hair. It was perfect hair, soft and smooth – she must brush it every day, Djaq thought. She looked into Marian’s eyes for a long moment, and in the depths of them she thought she caught a glimpse of something as hard as diamond. She stared for as long as she could bear the intimacy, then she closed her own eyes and kissed her.

Marian’s lips were soft and warm, and smaller than Allan’s or even Will’s. Close to, her features were more delicate, the grain of her skin finer. She made a little sound as Djaq’s lips met hers, and it ignited something in Djaq that made her fingers tighten and the power bunch in all her muscles. She caught Marian around the waist and spun her around, pressing her up against the tree with the weight of her body.

Marian’s eyes shocked open as Djaq broke the kiss. They were all bright with half-conceived questions and sudden awareness – what had brought her here? Djaq had the time to wonder. What had she come for? She decided she didn’t want to know. Before Marian could put any of her questions into words, Djaq kissed her again, and this time it wasn’t so gentle.

She dragged a hand through Marian’s hair, parting her lips with her tongue. Marian tasted different to the boys. She was somehow less abrasive, less assaulting. But she was pressing back, that iron seam taking control of her body and running its hands through Djaq’s hair, gripping and pulling. Djaq broke away again, breathing hard. Marian gazed back at her with flushed cheeks and a glint of fight in her eye.

“What if the others come back?” Djaq broke the quiet with the first words to be spoken since- the first words to be spoken. Marian tossed her head. Her hair – still rough at the ends, though growing back – fell in glowing mahogany waves over her shoulders.

“Let them.” She seized Djaq in another kiss that felt half like a struggle, and the world span. When Djaq pushed Marian away, they were on the ground, amongst the bracken and the fallen leaves that smelled of dew. Above her, a patch of sky and spreading branches and birdcalls and Marian. She was sat across her waist. The touch of her palms on Djaq’s abdomen was cool and dry. They smoothed up, past her navel, under her shirt, over her ribcage, caressed the swell of her breasts. Djaq bit down hard on her lip to keep any noise from escaping as Marian’s fingers teased her nipples erect. Then her hands slid down again, over her ribs and to her belt.

The breeze cooled the skin of her abdomen. A fern dipped its fronds, brushing against her. It left wet trails where it had touched. Djaq lay without moving as Marian undid her belt – heavy jerk, clink, release – and pushed her trousers down past her hips.

Then, Djaq raised her hands – it felt like they were made of lead – to trace the places on Marian’s body where the leaf-dappled light fell – her hair and her shoulders. A smile curved Marian’s lips as she bent her head to kiss the spot just below Djaq’s navel, then the place below that, and below that. Djaq’s fingers curled in her hair. Marian ran her hands over Djaq’s hips, pulling her trousers down and away and parting her legs. Her hot breath was on Djaq’s thighs. From the empty V made by Djaq’s legs, Marian looked up once. Half a smile played on her lips. The light in her eyes danced.

Then Djaq closed her eyes and tipped her head back.

The first tentative stroke of Marian’s tongue against her was a bolt of sensation. Djaq’s body arched, her hands fisted – they came up only with loose leaves. The second was more confident, bolder. A whapping cataclysm of half-blinding pleasure darted through her. But pleasure wasn’t even the word. This was different. Different to Allan, different to Will, to John, even more than they were different to each other. This was otherworldly. Djaq opened her eyes, a low hum of wire-taut feeling throbbing and building. She reached down, fingers finding Marian’s head and twisting in her hair, feeling the motion of her even as she felt it between her legs. She moaned through her nose, her lips pressed tight together. The feeling of Marian’s mouth against her wetness, pushing, pressing against her-

Djaq came, every muscle in her body tightening. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing nothing. Her hands clenched. Her body shook. As she came back to herself, she felt Marian’s cool fingers on her hot skin. She opened her eyes and looked up into the treetops, where the leaves rustled and the sky was pale beneficence.


	10. A Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four drabbles. Three pairings. One night. (Plus some introspection from Little John.)

Marian was surprised when it was Djaq, and not Robin, at her window. Djaq was surprised herself. Her traitor feet had led her this way without thinking. The room was dark apart from the rectangle of dusky evening light under the window. Djaq stood in it now.

“What is it?” Marian asked, drawing closer to Djaq. Her nightgown was as fine as if she were only wearing moonbeams. Djaq swallowed. “Do you bring a message from Robin?”

“No.” Djaq’s fingers plaited in front of her. She had come this far – her brother wouldn’t turn back now. “I come for you.”

…

Robin didn’t go to Marian that night. He had been throwing the idea back and forth in his mind all day. Marian’s smooth, milky limbs, her dark eyes… Yet somehow, today, the thought/memory had lost its lustre. It was as dull as his old eagerness for war. Now it was like something locked in a cage. He could see it, but couldn’t touch it.

Instead, the thoughts that came flittingly to him, like nervous birds, were of Much. His blue eyes kept catching Robin unawares. Robin wasn’t sure he’d be welcomed, but when dark fell he went to him nonetheless.

…

After darkness fell, Allan and Will filled the time without Djaq by getting solidly drunk on stolen ale.

“You don’t know,” Allan said, halfway into the second keg, “how much I enjoy time with you, Will.”

Will looked at him sideways. It was slurred but it was honest. Allan had been getting more straightforward the more he drank. He leaned forward now and almost tipped over. Will caught him, though he wasn’t very steady himself. Allan was laughing. He leaned more weight into Will, pressing him backwards onto the leaf-litter and meeting his lips with a sloppy, but satisfying, kiss.

…

John didn’t join Allan and Will and their ale, but spent the night in darkness, on a damp, leafy rise above camp. As the night wore on, he began to be glad he had eschewed their company. The sounds – they travelled far in the quiet forest, further than the younger ones might imagine – that reached his ears gave him the idea that he might not have been so welcome. He couldn’t help but laugh.

Nights like these, there seemed to be something in the air. It affected John differently. Nights like these made him think of those he had lost.


	11. When We Were Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allan and Will between seasons one and two.

“I was a terror when I was young,” Allan said, taking a swig from the cup. He kept hold of it, tapping its edge on the stolen barrel of ale. “Smashing things, screaming all the time… Me and Tom, we’d-“ He broke off and looked down abruptly. Will shifted where he sat, making the dead leaves crackle. Tentatively, he reached out and put a hand on Allan’s arm. His heart seemed to turn over in his chest in the quiet; the air pressed on him with its weight of intimacy. Late afternoon sunlight broke up around the leaves and shone down in golden shafts. There was no sound but for the lazy chirrup and warble of birds. At last, Allan looked up, smiling – though there was something else in it, Will thought. “We were both little monsters.” He covered Will’s hand with his own. “I’ll bet you were the perfect child.”

Will shrugged one shoulder, and tried to smile. “You’re right,” he said, speaking quietly. “I was the quintessential carpenter’s son.” He looked away from Allan and the cup he was offering, up into the treetops where the light danced around the shifting leaves. “I wonder what Luke’s doing now.”


	12. A Night in the Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the winter between seasons one and two, Guy of Gisborne gets punished by the Sheriff.
> 
> Be aware of non-explicit dubcon in this ficlet.

“Over a month and you still can’t find him.”

Guy controlled a shudder by a force of will as the Sheriff’s hands slid over his shoulders and down his back. There was more than his ubiquitous, low-level disgust – now there was the ratcheted-up frisson of fear boiling sickly behind it all.

The Sheriff’s voice was slick and low. “Over a month without as much as a sniff of Robin Hood or a single of his inept disciples.” A finger traced the line of Guy’s collarbone from behind, then the hand palmed the base of his throat gently. Guy did his best not to swallow. It was easy. His mouth was as dry as a bone. “Can you give me a plausible explanation for this that doesn’t involve the incompetence of your men or their leader?”

“I thought-” his voice faltered and Guy winced, clearing his throat and beginning again. “I thought they might have succumbed to the weather, sir.”

“Ah, yes.” There was a oblique edge of satisfaction to those words that made Guy think of the smile that must be painting the Sheriff’s face at that very thought. He kept his own face expressionless, his eyes fixed on the blank wall opposite him. The Sheriff’s voice purred close behind his right shoulder. “This bleak midwinter. That would be beautifully relaxing. However,” his tone changed and became as hard as steel, “if that were indeed the case, Gisbourne, I would still require you to find their pitiful corpses and string them up. For the public, you know.” A long hissing exhale and a sound of contemplation. “Of course, I’d rather you caught Hood alive. So I could have my fun with him.”

The precisely defined sound of his footsteps. The Sheriff sauntered into Guy’s line of sight. A silvery flicker of light glanced off something he was holding in his gloved hands. Guy clenched his jaw. So. It was to be the knife again tonight. At least it wasn’t as bad as his father’s rod. He counted himself lucky to be out from under that, no matter what the Sheriff did to him.

And it was all the more incentive for finding Hood, Guy supposed, as the Sheriff gathered his leather shirt in one fist and sliced off the first button with his knife. It hit the floor with a ping. When he found Robin Hood, the Sheriff would have the real architect of his frustrations at his mercy. Nothing would make him happier. And Guy – well, he would be left, finally, with Marian.

Guy thought of Marian as the Sheriff slid the leather over his shoulders and let it fall to the ground. The dream of her kept him from crying out when the knife cut him.


	13. Sunrise

“It is dawn.”

“Mmm?” Marian acquiesced reluctantly to the first shades of wakefulness. She drew in a breath, stretching. Her muscles ached.

“Dawn. The sun is rising.”

She was warm. Light pressed gently on her closed eyelids. Tentatively, she reached out an exploratory hand. When she found nothing, she yawned and opened her eyes.

At first she didn’t recognise the figure standing in front of the window. The pale dawn light highlighted the curves of their body, glancing over dark hair and bare skin. “Djaq?”

Djaq turned her face to Marian, and the light licked over her smile. “My lady.”


	14. Belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In S2E01, Allan is captured, suborned, and released by Guy. He'll be Gisborne's spy for the rest of the season. This drabble is set after the episode.

“What happened?”

“Eh?” Allan winced away from Will’s probing fingers on his ribcage. He had risked a crane down at his chest, now bare in the firelight; it was a patchwork of bruises. Will glanced up, eyes serious.

“These men,” he said, holding Allan’s gaze. “They did all this?”

Allan held Will’s gaze, fighting the turmoil of his thoughts. It was better this way, he told himself. No one got hurt. “I diddled ‘em out of a pretty penny. They were drunk.” Lying was his stock-in-trade. He watched as Will looked away, down again, and knew that he was believed.


	15. Unsaid

Despite honesty, despite honour, despite everything it was that they shared, there was one question Much couldn’t bring himself to ask Djaq. Not even in this quiet, post-coital moments, where they lay gently breathing beside one another, touching and not touching. Her arm over his chest. His head on her thigh. His feet in her lap (they were cold, and needed warming).

It wasn’t ‘do you love me?’ Much had asked that one before. After a couple of tense moments, Djaq had replied with a low-voiced ‘no’. Things inside Much had wilted, but it hadn’t stopped them. Much found, in the absence of her love, there was still scope for bittersweet liaisons under the whispering trees. The question always half at the back of his mind was a harsher one.

_Do you do this because you pity me?_

Much closed his mouth, and pressed it to her lips, and didn’t ask.


	16. I Do

“I just wish you wouldn’t get so emotional!”

Marian stilled, staring at Robin. “Emotional?” Her voice was low and dangerous. Robin turned away, dragging a hand through his hair. It was an argument in whispers, both of them alert to the little night-time sounds of Knighton Hall and Marian’s moonlit bedroom.

“You know what I mean.”

Marian folded her arms, lifted her chin; but inside she was less resolute. She was getting sick of this. Every night he came they argued. “Just go.”

“You don’t mean that.” Robin’s eyes were dark and still.

She turned away from him. “I do.”


	17. Lessons

“I’ll teach you then, shall I?”

Allan barely had time to open his mouth to reply before his back hit the wall, knocking all the wind out of him. The stone was clammy and cold against his bare skin. He mouth shaped words for a few moments, breathless, with Guy’s face – all angular and glowering – filling up his field of vision. Allan could smell him too, musk and leather, and it trickled down inside him, little tendrils of it stroking and stirring dark, dormant bits of his body, his soul.

“Yeah,” he managed, half-smiling. “Teach me. Teach me a lesson.”


	18. Words

Allan didn’t talk much these days, Will found. Oh, he was all banter and jokes over breakfast, and wry smiles and little asides in the afternoon, but after the sun set, and the fire died down, and Will slipped his arms around him (Allan’s was a body now almost as familiar as his own), the ex-minstrel – if he was to be believed – didn’t have much to say at all.

So Will had made it his duty to coax words out of him. In the quiet of the night, away from camp, under the silent stars that peeked, twinkling, between the dark leaves, Will exerted all his energy on getting the man he was supposed to know so well (but who seemed so far away these days) to say something, anything, that would shed some light, and shore up the crumbling structure of Will’s certainty in what they had. (Sometimes, these days, he would begin at something with his knife or his axe and find his hands unsteady. This had never happened before.)

A tongue, drawn along a stubbled jawline, would win a murmur. Rough carpenter’s hands sliding up under the hem of a shirt, over the bare flesh of an abdomen, could inveigle a hitched breath, an inarticulate noise in his throat, and the closing of his blue eyes. And though Will was no expert at this – he would admit it himself – down amidst the trees’ shed leaves, with the night cool against their hot skin and their bodies so close they could almost be one person, Will could wring the sounds he treasured most of all from Allan; a monologue of half-broken utterances, fragments of sentences, whimpers and groans.

_Oh ... don’t stop, don’t dare ... I need ... oh God ... Will ... I love you – _


	19. After the Fact

Allan wished that Guy of Gisborne could have stripped away his memories as easily as his clothes. He was still awake, mired in the dark topography of the hours between midnight and sunrise, and his eyes wouldn’t close and let him slip away from the prison of his exhausted body and these four walls.

Not Gisborne’s room. Of course not. That might be too much of a courtesy to extend to your hard-won servant. _Servant._ The word made his flesh crawl, but made his cock harden too, and perhaps that was the insomnia’s root: the knowledge of what came hereafter.


	20. Honey & Vinegar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after S2E09.

“I just think you could have been a bit more gentle, that’s all.” Much tugged against the ropes around his wrists, across his chest. “I’m going to get rope burns.” The forest didn’t answer. Its shadows seemed to draw together and the thought – the frightening thought – that she might have left him alone here came back to haunt him. He pushed it away and shifted, shouldblades flexing against the tree. The breeze whispered through the undergrowth and cooled his bare skin, raising goosebumps in the most unflattering places.

This – ropes, knots, chafing – was beginning to feel a bit too familiar. He couldn’t begin to count the number of times he’d been tied up since – well, since meeting Robin, way back in those misty, half-forgotten childhood days. This, though, for once, carried no hint of Robin’s hand.

“Djaq? It’s getting cold...”

With almost no sound at all, she was in front of him, a twinkle in her dark eyes. A belt – long and leather and unyielding-looking – hung from one small hand. “Much,” she purred, a smile curving her own lips as she traced his with a delicate finger, “shut up.”

Much closed his mouth. Honey, be damned. He couldn’t resist vinegar.


	21. Stunning

“It’s as simple as this. You just-” The Fool’s finger shimmered towards his eye and Will couldn’t help but flinch away. Before he could react, he’d suffered a light slap across the mouth (a love-tap, his mother would have said) and his chin was held firmly in place again by surprisingly strong fingers. “Honestly, for a supposedly macho carpenter, you’re such a big wimp. Stay still.”

“I’m not sure about this,” Will said. The Fool rolled his eyes, fluttered kohl’d eyelids, and smiled more softly than Will would have imagined him capable.

“Don’t be silly. You’ll look stunning in sequins.”


	22. Glitter

“What’s your name?” It was a quiet murmur of Will’s, barely disturbing the darkness, the soft sound of their breathing. It escaped sleepily from between his lips; he hadn’t meant to speak it. It was only when the Fool smiled – a slow and languorous thing – that Will could be certain he hadn’t simply thought it.

It was a moonlit night, the light silvering the natural paths and alleys and passages and clearings that made Sherwood Forest. It slicked over wrinkled bark and glinted off leaves; it turned meadows – hidden meadows, like this one – into waving seas of silver-blue. In the blue velvet sky above them, tiny stars twinkled coldly. The full moon shone on, aureoled in its own light. Will had been dozing on and off, curled with his shoulders in the Fool’s side, head on his chest. The steady beat of his heart lulled him, let him forget for a while that the others back at the camp must be missing them, suspecting them.

It was another half a minute before the smile parted, sighed. Will was almost asleep again. He opened his eyes to see the shadowed angle of the Fool’s chin, pointing upward at the sky. “Name?” His voice was soft. The arm that had been casually slung across Will’s side lifted, hand trailing up Will’s arm to his shoulder, the bare skin of his neck. Will closed his eyes again, let a quiet noise of contentment slip past his lips as the Fool’s warm hand caressed his neck, fingers sliding up into his hair. “I have no name. Does an avatar need a name? An archetype?”

“Mmm?” Will struggled to open his eyes again. One hand remained still on his head, fingers wound in his hair. The other had travelled down his body again, gliding warm over his arm and to his waist, where it found its way under the hem of his shirt. The touch of fingers on the warm skin there made him shiver, raising goosebumps. “No, I – I really want to know. Who you are. Where you come from. Why... why all this.”

The fingers drew little circles, spirals, patterns under his shirt, dancing higher. “I told you.” The Fool’s voice was gentle, low in his throat. Allan – the old Allan, the Allan that used to be (because he had changed – he had to have) – would have called it a ‘bedroom voice’. Ear to the Fool’s chest, Will could hear it reverberate through his body, little vibrations. “I have no name. No name, no father, no mother. I was born of shadows and laughter and beeswax to come to you in your hour of need.” A small chuckle, whose little judders and jumps in the Fool’s ribcage made Will smile. “Or then again, perhaps I was the issue of an illicit coupling of a stableboy and an Earl’s daughter. You can decide which you prefer.” His hand flattened against Will’s chest.

Will found the shape of the Fool’s hand under his shirt, and clasped his own around it. It occurred to him that the Fool would be able to feel his heartbeat, as he could hear his. He felt the words he wanted to say pressing behind his lips. It was easy enough to open his mouth and let them out. “Don’t go.”

Another soft chuckle. The Fool bent his neck so that his head was at an angle, eyes shadowed and glittering, creased by a smile. “You’re getting too attached to me. If I were to stay,” the fingers in Will’s hair stroked over his scalp and down, to the base of his neck, creeping inside his shirt collar, “you would find that I tend to grate on the nerves, after a while. The best performers do.”

“I don’t think so,” Will said, turning his head closer into the Fool’s chest. His cheek flattened against him, and his words breathed out against the Fool’s bare skin where his shirt lay still unfastened. “I never get tired of a good jester.”

The Fool’s chest rose and fell again, as he sighed. Will lifted his head, placing both hands on the grass on either side of the Fool to lever himself up. Where they had been touching, his skin felt suddenly cold. He leant on his hands, looking down at the Fool. His glitter was smeared across his cheeks, greasepaint faded and mostly gone. Will could see the lines at the corners of his eyes, his mouth. He looked almost human. The thought twisted a little in Will’s stomach. “Don’t go,” he said again, more quietly.

The Fool’s hands came up to cup Will’s face, and Will didn’t move away. His thumbs stroked down the line of Will’s jaw, fingers trailing across his neck briefly, and then his hands returned to hold Will’s face more firmly, guiding it down to his.

Their lips met, pressed, parted. Will didn’t close his eyes, even when he bent to kiss him again, this time of his own volition. In his chest, his heart was fluttering as if it were the first time all over again. It wasn’t nerves, though; it was the moonlight on the glitter, the closeness of skin, the look in the eyes of this man whose name he didn’t know. Will knew the Fool was right, in his roundabout way – he was getting too attached. Especially when the expression on his face told him that there was no way he would stay. Still, there was no way in this world or the next that he would stand up now, pluck the Fool’s warm hands from his neck, his shoulders, no way he would – or could – stop. He eased himself down, sliding one leg over the Fool’s waist, so that he was straddling him. He had glitter on his hands; he stroked it in streaks across the Fool’s cheeks. Slowly, the Fool smiled.


	23. Your Absent Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set mid-season two, in the absence of Allan, as autumn shades into winter. This... is an outlawrgy.

It had begun with all the dusty innocence and bad jokes of the late hours of a night under the influence, and slid. So it seemed to Will, anyhow. He didn’t have much experience with being drunk; he was dazed and almost delighted with the way the world seemed to blur and slip out of focus, and whole chunks of time would disappear inexplicably. It was as if someone had taken the night and shattered it, and scattered the shards all out of order.

He remembered stealing the ale clearly enough. He remembered the breathless laughter, the dash across open ground, laden down, and the relieving embrace of the forest shadows. He remembered the fire in the gathering twilight, and the chill creeping into the air. He remembered his first sip of the ale.

What else? Talking, laughing, a strange lubrication to his words that helped them slip out of his mouth with almost no input from himself. Stumblingly rising, the bite of the cold away from the fire, the particular texture of the shadows under the trees. Being alone, and then not.

Lying on his back on the earth, Djaq beside him, her body a reassurance that he was safe, wasn’t – wasn’t whatever else there was. Pointing out stars between the leaves. Her laughter. The heat of her breath on his cheek; and turning his head, the world seemed to spin. Her eyes. Her lips. The tense, poised intimacy of almost kissing.

Then, somehow, she was gone, and Will was alone again, in the dark. It was there – lying on his back, feeling the massive weight of the earth under him, a fracturing feeling in his chest that he couldn’t make sense of – that Robin found him.

Robin’s face, angular and concentrated, eyes two dark shadows of fierce intent, swam into his line of vision, blotting out the stars. “Will?” His voice as soft as feathers on the air. “We’ve had an idea.”

And that was how he came to be here, shivering, half naked in the depths of an October night. The fire’s light cast everything into soft light and strange shadows. Was he sobering up?

The distance seperating him and the other side of the circle was nothing but clean swept earth and a tract of cold air. At the other side of the circle knelt Djaq, head tilted back and her hands behind her back, face full of strange defiance. Except, of course, for the smile that played across her lips every so often; just a little thing, a faint thing, but there – a definitely upward curl of her lips, as if she’d had an amusing thought.

And the thing that hurt a little inside was to see John and Much flanking her, as casual as drink allowed, eyes flickering around the circle (and Will refused to meet them) and smiling a little like her; shouldn’t he be the one beside her?

She wouldn’t meet his eyes either. Instead her gaze kept drifting back to that empty spot between Robin and Will. Somehow they had knelt so that a bigger gap opened between them than the rest. It was chance, pure chance, Will was sure – as coincidental as the way a wisewoman would toss sticks to divine the future. It meant nothing.

Still, the absence of Allan hurt like a missing limb. He would have known how to deal with this. He would have made it right. He would have –

Will closed his eyes. Allan would have reached out and squeezed Will’s shoulder. He would have turned to him – a bright-eyed glance around the circle to make sure the others were watching – and let his hand travel up to Will’s neck, jaw, cheek – and leaned in to kiss him. Gently, at first. Then with more creativity, lips a soft trail over his jaw, down his neck, tongue dipping hot into the dent at the base of his neck, skimming along his collarbone. His other hand would have stroked up his thigh to find the bulge at the crotch of his breeches and squeeze. Making sure everyone saw.

Despite it all, despite the cold, the booze, the yawning gap between what should be and what was, Will found himself getting hard. He screwed his eyes tighter shut, drawing the air deep into him and holding it a little before breathing it out again. Sober? Not quite.

If Allan were here, he would look around at the others with challenging eyes (one hand still on Will’s cock), daring them wordlessly: _who wants some? Eh?_ And who would answer his challenge? Not Much. He would need a good deal of his master’s coaxing first. Not John. Circumstances would have to crowd in on Little John to persuade him, the very trees and air around them would have to whisper that it was the right thing to do. But Allan would be able to make it so.

It would be Robin. Robin wouldn’t be able to let any dare from Allan pass unanswered. It would be Robin to get up, cross the distance between them and kneel, with an over-the-shoulder glance almost the twin of Allan’s, and bend his head to capture first Will’s mouth with a kiss, and then move on to Allan, with a twinkling glance from under his eyelashes that was just for the both of them, that would go straight to Will’s spine, and shiver down to his cock in pulses of blood.

And then Robin would half turn, on his knees, one hand on Allan’s shoulder (stroking down his back as if it had a mind of its own), and his eyes would seek out Much’s. Will could see it all so clearly in his head: their gazes would lock, a brittle intensity passing between them, and Much would shake his head – just a little: a reflexive denial of what he knew was inevitable. Robin would nod. His other hand raise. Fingers crook, just a little. And that was all it would take.

John would take a little more. But, Will saw, Allan could do it. John would need attention. Cosseting from Djaq – if she would – her soft, stroking hands, her lips murmuring sweet somethings (better than nothings – somethings of reassuring matter), the way she could make any movement so full of grace and provocation. And then Allan would seperate from them, tearing himself away from Will and Robin and Much, and appear behind Djaq (hands smoothing up over her waist, down over her hips, her eyes briefly closing, body arching back into him) and, like the master of ceremonies, offer John the world.

Will lingered on the image of Allan and Djaq. Allan would hold her from behind, exactly like so, arms snaking around her waist, hands wandering. She would bite her lip, press back into him, her own hands searching behind her and finding his hips, his thighs, his arse. He would be hard against her – how could he not? She was Djaq.

When Will opened his eyes again, the emptiness of the circle was a physical pain. Djaq still knelt between John and Much; and Robin, beside him, breathed heat and uncertainty.

Robin broke the silence, glancing around at each of them. “So, how shall we begin this, then?”

To his surprise (perhaps more of the ale still moving him than he thought, or perhaps Allan’s absent hand), Will found himself speaking up. His voice didn’t waver when he said, “I think I know how.”


End file.
